2022

To feed a world population of over 9 billion in 2050 it is highly likely that we will need to see growth in all protein categories rather than the dominance of one over another.

This report reviews the current literature and media narrative around the subject of plant-based proteins and the position they have taken in the protein marketspace. It outlines the background and importance of the NZ Red Meat industry and why this continues to be a highly valuable sector.

It analyses recent research into amino acid profiles in red meat and discusses some of the points made around the health questions often formed in consumer minds. We now have a society made up of a range of lifestyle diets, where new words such as flexitarian have developed, and veganism is not so far from the mainstream.
Red meat will continue to be a vital source of nutrient dense protein. The Covid 19 pandemic has enhanced people’s confidence in their home-cooking abilities, and they have sought out higher value premium red meat products to complement their menus. Red meat has symbolic qualities which makes it a key component for festive occasions and social celebrations.

Plant proteins will cement their place in the retail food cabinet as well as in the food service and ingredients sectors. They offer a genuine alternative to red meat protein and will be an essential contributor to overall protein requirements of a growing global population with a focus on human nutrition and environmental impacts.

Red meat farmers and processors should be confident in their industry’s future and continue to invest in technology, people, minimising their environmental impact, and targeted consumer marketing.
Meat alternatives have an important place in the industry to further engage consumers in new and different ways. When it comes to animal protein vs plant protein it is an “AND” story, supported by growth in the entire protein category.

China has traditionally been perceived by the New Zealand red meat industry as a destination for large volumes of secondary cuts. However, after four visits to China over the period 2012-2019, I felt that New Zealand still didn’t fully recognise the extent of change and opportunity for our red meat represented by steady economic growth in China. This project set out to investigate the research questions of “What is our strategy in China?” and “How do we target the premium end of the market?”.

China is New Zealand’s largest export market for red meat by both volume and value. It is important that we demonstrate our commitment to the market by exploring and investing in our opportunities there. There is some rhetoric about putting “all our eggs in one basket” in China. So that we less exposed to reliance on shifting high volumes into this market, is important to maximise the value we get from our product in China.

This project consisted of a literature review of current New Zealand market activity in China and interviews with a number of industry stakeholders. A thematic analysis methodology was used to distill key themes from the interviews.

Currently, there is an overwhelmingly positive disposition among New Zealand’s red meat exporters due to exceptional growth in both demand and pricing from China. However, this mustn’t be confused with New Zealand success in the premium space. Lamb can be found on the menu at some high-end and Michelin star restaurants and the most recognized brands include Coastal Spring lamb and Lumina lamb. New Zealand Beef is not a premium product in China. If it is to be, there is plenty more work to be done.

One of the key challenges in marketing our meat in China is the fact that almost all meat is sold at the border, and we largely lose control of it there. This makes it difficult to ensure consistency of product and consistency of supply.

Consumer understanding of grass-fed meat is a challenge and New Zealand has invested in market education around health and environmental benefits. However, it is not clear whether this opportunity is ripe yet, or if this is the best focus for New Zealand investment.
In 2019 there was a notable lack of connection with consumers through social media marketing in China and low New Zealand presence on eCommerce channels. This has since improved markedly and demonstrates that our attitude towards China as a destination for premium products is changing. The market opportunity is now recognized and being invested in. However, we are only in our infancy of exploring the premium end of the red meat market in China.

Strategy for premium red meat in China needs to start with the product. Recognizable “premium” brands must have a story, not just a label. This must be backed by consistent product quality and consistent supply.

There is a real opportunity for meat companies to find and scale their niches. This requires a stripped-back approach focused on consistency of product and supply first. Smaller producers such as Coastal Spring Lamb have proven that “starting and scaling” can reap great rewards and larger meat companies are identifying similar opportunities. However, the scale of most New Zealand meat companies doesn’t lend itself to this approach.

Identifying markets that can be supplied directly (not selling to distributors) is a potential opportunity. Currently, this is not a suitable strategy for most New Zealand meat companies. However, this blue-sky approach with “premium brands” would enable price discovery, increased market insight, increased margins. While complex, boutique meat-producing operations gaining a premium from a great story and traceability information is something we might see in future.

Continual advancement of technology has created an excess number of data creation and management tools for use within agriculture. Multiple tools exist with similar purposes. Many of these are farm management tools or feed directly into the decisions associated with farm management. Reducing the number of new tools being created, would create for drive for information to be shared among the existing tools.

Open-source data sharing creates a centralised data pool. Data shared in the pool could be used by other tools for more efficient data utilisation. Combining data from various tools can utilise data more efficiently rather than looking at data from individual tools in isolation.

Many challenges exist alongside creating an open-source platform. Firstly, current tools often do not communicate their data directly and automatically with each other. They rely on an intermediate, often manual step, to transfer the data by downloading and uploading data. This process is time consuming and can result in errors within the data. Secondly, agriculture is not well digitally represented. For a country and a sector which prides itself on innovation, the uptake of technology and data recording has struggled to move past the early adopters until recently.

Within the current agricultural data landscape, not many farms have their own digital twin. Under representation of farm digital twins has been driven by a lack of data sharing between tools. Lastly, many farmers are worried that creating an open-source platform may allow for other people to have better access to their data than they do or specific data about location will be easily accessible. However, open source and more public data could help to bridge urban rural divide and demonstrate the work towards environmental stewardship which customers are demanding.

Currently, there is no leader in the open-source space within New Zealand agriculture. A lack of leadership has created a disconnect between the technology developers and those on farm implementing the technology. The evidence of the disconnect can be seen through the workstreams present within the agricultural technology community. These workstreams include data interoperability and targeting management of agricultural data by Trust Alliance NZ (TANZ) and AgriTechNZ respectively.

Whilst these workstreams are being undertaken, the implementers on farm do not know these workstreams are occurring. Farmers are still looking for a solution to many of the issues associated with accessing and increasing utilisation of their data. The level of openness is viewed differently between the creators of the data on farm and those who may look to have an insight into what is happening on farm.

To create a successful open-source platform there are several pertinent workstreams to carry out. Firstly, creating a data interoperability standard, where all data can be shared from one tool to another with a small amount of translation. Secondly, defining multitiered data rights and access to the pool based on the contributor granting access.

Both creating interoperability standards and appropriate data rights, removes the ability for competitor service companies to hold on to farm information as a competitive advantage. Plus, data about the farm could be passed on with a sale electronically rather than as paper records. Lastly, the creation of an open-source platform could ultimately allow for data sharing and automatic population of compliance documents. Open source could help to create one compliance audit on farm for all purposes, ultimately saving the farmer time whilst utilising data better on farm.

Farmers in Aotearoa New Zealand face increasing regulatory pressure over coming decades. The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as reduce the loss of contaminants to water is going to be a major challenge for the farming sector in this country and difficult to achieve within complex farming systems.

In response to these challenges many communities have founded catchment groups as a collective response to need provision on farm. These groups seek to utilise social learning techniques and communities of practice type approaches to increasing the capability of their members to shift them through decision making processes and through barriers that impede progress.

This study encompasses in depth interviews with five individuals involved in the formulation and running of catchment groups for their communities. Interviews were conducted to explore whether their experiences to date matched their expectations. Thematic analysis was utilised to identify key trends in the areas of success that the groups have had as well as the barriers to success that they have encountered. Areas that had particular prominence included the opportunity to feed back into regulatory processes to allow member to participate in the formulation of regulation.

Members also expressed a desire to foster better communication with urban communities and to communicate their perspective on farming’s role within a sustainable economy. One of the key benefits that participants have found is the way in which participation has increased the resilience of their community through allowing them a shared space to develop their understanding of the current environment through a narrative and experiential exploration of the issues they face.

Catchment groups in Aotearoa New Zealand are defined by their geographic extent rather than being united by practice or industry. This quality is not reflected in the literature published to date which focusses on utilising communities of practice to enable on farm practice change. As such the goals and work of catchment groups do not reflect a linear understanding of adaptation to an external threat. In many instances catchment groups are a method of enabling agency in attempting to redefine the problem before a course of action is determined.

Though the groups have seen a lot of success in enabling their members to engage with more sustainable farming practices they have not yet made significant progress through decision making frameworks nor have they addressed the larger barriers to change in adoption of application of mitigations within complex systems. Further studies in this area need to adopt a more holistic viewpoint of the goals that a community may have in forming a catchment group and also the potential for longitudinal studies to be more efficacious in capturing changes in attitude and expectations over time. In order to be successful catchment groups are going to require funding support for administrative capacity as well as clear planning and gap identification from leadership within their group.

“I really see the value of catchment groups and community groups in that they’re the ones that know what’s happening on the ground, they have the vested interest. A lot of the people have been living in the area for generations and they have strong vision and goals for what they’d like to achieve on their own farms. The really engaged and motivated people are also looking at what’s going to be the situation for their kids and or farming in the future. So they’ve got that long term vision and they’re connected with the day to day environment. Having catchment groups and allowing them the space to grow and to have organisation and a voice is really valuable for the country as a whole.

We need information to move in both directions. We need information to come from the ground up and we need it to be well disseminated when It’s coming the other way and the best way for that is if it’s communicated peer to peer as much as possible and that ideas are discussed and understood rather than terms and technology just being put out there without it being integrated. I feel that catchment groups really provide an opportunity for knowledge sharing and building ideas. They do have a lot of positive outcomes outside of just that particular group.”

Facilitator – Group A

The New Zealand arable industry is faced with an ever-increasing problem of maintaining a competitive and profitable advantage, that still provides for its consumers. These challenges are compounded by increasing environmental compliance.

Lean theory offers an ever-evolving group of practices, both theoretical and managerial, that create a problem-solving culture, that could help the New Zealand arable industry face these challenges.

Critical to Lean is continuous improvement, learning, waste elimination, and customer satisfaction. Lean tools have been explored in the wider agricultural industry, with literature indicating benefits of improved product quality, yield optimisation, enhance personnel management, waste reduction, and product value creation.

Other than financial benefits, both psychosocial and environment can be improved with Lean use. When considering arable agriculture very little information is available regarding Lean.

To identify any current use of Lean tools or active Lean theory in New Zealand arable industry, five managers from the New Zealand arable agriculture industry were interviewed. Interview questions helped identify any Lean management practice use, or any currently used management practices that fit with Lean. Interviewees showed several underlying managerial ideas that fit loosely with Lean theory, these include standardised work procedures, Jidoka, continuous improvement, learning, error detection, waste, and value definition. Using these existing managerial ideas as smaller localised steps of change, could offer a pathway for increasing the use of Lean in New Zealand arable agriculture.

Lean flow can be considered to fit well with New Zealand arable production, but Lean customer pull is expected to be difficult to adopt with current production programmes. Difficultly with Lean pull, is primarily due to the complicated biological system that drives arable production, rather than customer requirement as the driver for Lean pull. Pull is expected to be a primary challenge with further adoption of Lean into New Zealand arable agriculture.

Recommendations include:

• Further research is required to interpret Lean customer pull and the interaction with the arable biological system.
• Identify any New Zealand arable producers that operate under a Lean business model.
• Use Lean in a trial adoption, i.e., from the start to finish of one arable crop.
• Using some of the underlying Lean ideas to help enhance management if full Lean system adoption cannot occur.

Following the New Zealand Government’s announcement to include agriculture into the ETS by 2025, He Waka Eke Noa has proposed two primary initiatives to measure and manage carbon emissions in the agriculture sector at the processor and/or farm level. For farmers to measure and manage their carbon footprints there must be a robust system in place to calculate not only their carbon dioxide emissions, but also their carbon dioxide sequestration potential.

This research report will focus on answering the question of; what is the carbon sequestration potential of indigenous woody vegetation on New Zealand farmland and how can it be used to more accurately model on-farm carbon footprints?

Key findings

• The opportunity for indigenous carbon sequestration on New Zealand farmland is significant, with approximately 2,000,000 hectares of indigenous forest and shrubland existing.
• The carbon sequestration potential of indigenous woody vegetation is largely understudied. This was particularly evident in the lack of research completed on the carbon sequestration potential of indigenous forest and shrubland that is typical of New Zealand farmland; naturally regenerating, and restorative, mixed species compositions.
• Current ETS policy does not provide measures for landowners to accurately model the carbon sequestration of indigenous woody vegetation typically found on farm. This is specifically for landowners wanting to enter forest land less than 100ha which under policy they must use the MPI carbon look-up tables to calculate.
• Current ETS policy limits the actual on-farm carbon sequestration occurring within indigenous woody vegetation with its ‘forest land definition’. It has been noted that feasibly, the only factor in the ‘forest land definition’ that could be changed would be the requirement to have trees that are 5m or more in height.

Recommendations

• Agriculture industry to prioritise extensive, nationwide research on understanding the carbon sequestration rates of indigenous woody vegetation, particularly of mixed species composition indigenous regeneration and restoration forest and shrubland on farmland.
• Agriculture industry to use this research to develop a robust model of indigenous carbon look-up tables that captures the common categories of woody vegetation on farmland. It may be that this is species specific for the large, more studied conifers, but it should also accommodate mixed species forest and shrubland scenarios typical of indigenous regenerating and restoration on farmland. This should also include a category for key indigenous scenarios growing below 5m in height, such as matagouri, Coprosma, Hebe, and riparian plantings. The current MPI look-up tables should be kept and used for calculating the sequestration of manuka and kanuka only.
• MPI’s ETS policy of ‘forest land definition’ should be changed to allow indigenous forest and shrubland species less than 5m in height to be included. This may be that it is provided as a special case to the agriculture industry.
• Once robust carbon look-up tables have been developed, MPI’s ETS policy which states that forests equal to or over 100ha should have its threshold area increased (e.g. to 500ha) before Field Measurement Assessment (FMA) is required, or one step further, have FMA as optional.